Microsoft Releases Source Code Of MS-DOS And Word For Windows

Keep your shirt on, people, it’s just the earliest versions! But a good gesture is a good gesture, and this is something that technology enthusiasts and nostalgic programmers will appreciate.

Redmond announced that it is releasing the original source code for MS-DOS 1.1 and 2.0, along with Word for Windows 1.1a, to the public for the first time.

In a blog post announcing this noble act, Microsoft says that it worked with the fine folks of the Computer History Museum on this project. In the words of Roy Levin, engineer and managing director for Microsoft Research:

“Thanks to the Computer History Museum, these important pieces of source code will be preserved and made available to the community for historical and technical scholarship.”

Great things come from humble beginnings, as Roy notes that MS-DOS back then had less than 300KB of source code. Yes, kilobytes, simple photos are ten times as heavy these days!

The source code is actually available on the website of the Computer History Museum — go here for MS-DOS 1.1 and 2.0, and here for Word for Windows 1.1a.

It comes with a couple of directives, basically that people that download the code must agree to only use it for noncommercial purposes, and secondly the code may not be posted anywhere else on the Internet. Makes total sense.

Now the next big question is when will Microsoft open up the source code for Windows XP? Probably within the next couple of decades, be my guess!